Would you like power with those fries?

A new garage-engineered generator burns the waste oil from restaurants’ deep fryers to generate electricity and hot water. Put 80 gallons of grease into the Vegawatt each week, and its creators promise it will generate about 5 kilowatts of power.

That’s about 10 percent of the total energy needs of Finz, a seafood restaurant in Dedham, Massachusetts, where the first Vegawatt is being tested. At New England electricity rates, the system offsets about $2.50 worth of electricity with each gallon of waste oil poured into it.

Vegawatt’s founder and inventor, James Peret, estimates that restaurants purchasing the $22,000 machine will save about $1,000 per month in electricity costs, for a payback time of two years.

“You take this waste resource and make it a profit center,” said Peret, who spent four long years cooking up the project in his garage. “When I started telling people, they said, ‘Someone’s gotta have done this.’ I’d run into more people. They’d say, ‘Why hasn’t anyone done this?’ My only response was, ‘I don’t know; it seems like a good idea.’”

While Vegawatt is a small solution, Peret’s invention is a very clever embodiment of several long-cherished alternative-energy ideas: capturing both the heat and power from fuel combustion, making energy where it’s used, and recycling used resources. Big industrial plants that make paper, for example, have long taken advantage of these concepts to save on their utility bills, but the Vegawatt will be the first product that could turn thousands of fast food restaurants into mini power plants.

“Now the restaurant owners are going to be motivated to put every single drop of waste oil into this thing, because it will pay for itself,” Peret said.

And importantly, it provides convenience for restaurateurs or Burger King managers, instead of subtracting it, like so many green solutions seem to.

Restaurants that fry delicious things like chicken and french fries generate dozens of gallons of waste oil that have to be stored in barrels out back. Because used cooking oil is considered a low-grade hazardous material, they haven’t been allowed to just throw it away; they generally had to pay rendering-plant operators to come. But it is now a sellers’ market for grease.

Higher crude prices have made other types of oil more expensive. Biodiesel makers and renderers have become increasingly willing to pay up to 40 cents a gallon for the stuff. There have even been reports of “biodiesel pirates” stealing fryer grease.

In fact, Vegawatt is derived from the home-brew fuel movement that many trace back to Dr. Thomas Reed, who popularized a recipe to convert waste cooking oil into biodiesel more than 20 years ago. Peret converted his truck to run on straight vegetable oil, or SVO to home brewers. But he was troubled by the inefficiency of the process.

“If you want to run waste vegetable oil in your car, it’s not as simple as going behind a restaurant and filling up,” Peret said. “People that do this spend the majority of their free time collecting fuel from restaurants.”

Peret realized he could use the same engine technology to power an on-site generator and defray a restaurant’s electricity costs.

“It’s not difficult to go from spinning tires to spinning magnets,” he said

So he created a test unit — which you can see at the back of his garage in the top photo — that’s basically a diesel generator hacked to run waste cooking oil. It feeds power directly into the restaurant’s electrical system through a 30 amp hook-in.

Vegawatt is more efficient than a typical coal or natural gas plant. Peret said it can capture 70 percent of the fuel’s caloric value. That’s because the generator captures and uses the waste heat it generates.

“All the water [the restaurant] would send to its boiler, instead of sending it straight there from the city, we run it through our heat exchanger first,” Peret said. “Depending on the flow, [the water] can go into the hot water heater at 120 degrees.” (This non-electrical energy savings is included in the 5-kilowatt rating cited above.)

The big power plants, though technically very efficient, waste most of the fuel they burn. After accounting for all the sources of energy waste “what you are left with … is just 27.6 units of usable energy out of every 100 units you started with,” energy researcher Benjamin Sovacool explained in his recent book, The Dirty Energy Dilemma. “In terms of making toast, it would have been nearly four times more efficient just to burn a lump of coal and place your bread over the flame.”

Biomass energy sources — like waste wood, switchgrass or cooking oil — are best when used right near the source of their creation. Dragging the stuff creates more emissions and raises the cost of the fuel. Vegawatt doesn’t have that problem. By company estimates, the Vegawatt generates 50 percent less carbon dioxide than a comparable amount of electricity from a coal power plant.

“In terms of the amount of energy that it takes to transport this waste, it’s a french fry,” Peret said. “You just feed the guy who is picking up the bucket and pouring it into the system.”

Forest Gregg, an alternative-fuels expert and author of last year’s SVO: Powering Your Vehicle with Straight Vegetble Oil, called it a “nifty application and a great business idea.”

Gregg also drew attention to a strong part of Vegawatt’s pitch: that it won’t require “intervention or maintenance by restaurant staff.” That’s because when users buy a system — or lease it for $450 a month — they get a service contract with the company for cleaning and maintenance.

The owner of the very first Vegawatt, George Carey (pictured above), seems pleased with the unit, too. He heartily endorses the company on its website, saying, “The Vegawatt system enables me to significantly reduce my energy costs, generate clean energy on-site, and very importantly, reduce the heavy energy footprint of my restaurant.”

See Also:

• Tapping the Vortex for Green Energy
• Global Energy Network Depends on a Few Vulnerable Nodes
• How A Google Engineer Hacks His Energy Usage
• Biofuel Startup Strives to Meet Obama’s Green Ambitions
• Obama Voices Biofuel Doubts
• Biofuel Solution at Sea, not on Land
• DOE Invests $125 Million in Synthetic Life to Develop Biofuels …
• Food vs. Fuel: Saltwater Crops May Be Key to Solving Earth’s Land …

[via WIRED] by Alexis Madrigal

If you as a product manager would like to build a user community that will self sustain, here are some tips based on my experience building the foundations of a user community on 3D ContentCentral website that currently has close to 450,000 registered members.

1) What is in it for them? – Have a dead simple value proposition for the users to join your community.  I repeat again – It has to be dead simple to understand. In the case of 3D ContentCentral, product designers got to download free 3D models of supplier components such as cylinders, motors, gears, electrical components etc. that saved them valuable design time that they would otherwise spend modeling these purchased components.

2) Enable sharing – Allow users to contribute to the community whether this is through discussions, add content to the website. Make it interactive. Tap into the wisdom of the crowd. But make the sharing process super easy to use. You need to act as the catalyst to start the interaction and then step out of the way. In the above case, we created a user library that allowed users to easily share 3D models of the purchased components between themselves. All we provided was free disk space and a website.

3) Enable peer recognition – Humans value peer recognition a whole lot more than monetary compensation. Who would not want to be recognized as an MVP by their peers? So enable it – allow users to recognize people whether it be via ratings and reviews or just by allowing people to say send a Thank you note via your community site.

4) Spotlight high performers: Recognize the high performers yourself. Have a spotlight section and recognize them. 3D ContentCentral has a spotlight that recognizes those users that contributed the maximum number of models. But don’t allow this to stagnate. Keep changing the user who gets spotlighted so that everyone knows they have a shot at it. Also ends up to be peer motivation – if he can do it, why can’t I?

5) Listen: Allow users to tell you how you can help them interact better. Listen to their ideas and the make the experience better. User community will use the site in ways you never predicted. But don’t put up a front and say – this is the way you shall use it. Forgo ownership (as long as the site is not being hijacked in illegal or unethical ways), play the role of the catalyst. You will be surprised as to how well the community will police itself and kick the bad guys out – all because of the tremendous value the community is providing them. Stand on the side and watch and step in only when absolutely needed. Again, provide a mechanism for the community to notify you so that you can take action. For example, we had a simple “Report inappropriate content” feature which allowed users to flag bad stuff. And guess what, such reports were not that many. When you do get valid reports of inappropriate stuff, thank the person who notified you and immediately take action whether it is to remove such stuff or kick out the repeat offenders. But use the feather first and the hammer only if absolutely needed.

[via ProductMarketingTips] by Gopal Shenoy

After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.

The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003. Critics say the legal offensive ultimately did little to stem the tide of illegally downloaded music. And it created a public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl.

Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider’s customers making music available online for others to take.

Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

The RIAA said it has agreements in principle with some ISPs, but declined to say which ones. But ISPs, which are increasingly cutting content deals of their own with entertainment companies, may have more incentive to work with the music labels now than in previous years.

The new approach dispenses with one of the most contentious parts of the lawsuit strategy, which involved filing lawsuits requiring ISPs to disclose the identities of file sharers. Under the new strategy, the RIAA would forward its emails to the ISPs without demanding to know the customers’ identity.

Though the industry group is reserving the right to sue people who are particularly heavy file sharers, or who ignore repeated warnings, it expects its lawsuits to decline to a trickle. The group stopped filing mass lawsuits early this fall.

It isn’t clear that the new strategy will work or how effective the collaboration with the ISPs will be. “There isn’t any silver-bullet anti-piracy solution,” said Eric Garland, president of BigChampagne LLC, a piracy consulting company.

Mr. Garland said he likes the idea of a solution that works more with consumers. In the years since the RIAA began its mass legal action, “It has become abundantly clear that the carrot is far more important than the stick.” Indeed, many in the music industry felt the lawsuits had outlived their usefulness.

“I’d give them credit for stopping what they’ve already been doing because it’s been so destructive,” said Brian Toder, who represents a Minnesota mother involved in a high-profile file-sharing case. But his client isn’t off the hook. The RIAA said it plans to continue with outstanding lawsuits.

Over the summer, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo began brokering an agreement between the recording industry and the ISPs that would address both sides’ piracy concerns. “We wanted to end the litigation,” said Steven Cohen, Mr. Cuomo’s chief of staff. “It’s not helpful.”

As the RIAA worked to cut deals with individual ISPs, Mr. Cuomo’s office started working on a broader plan under which major ISPs would agree to work to prevent illegal file-sharing.

The RIAA believes the new strategy will reach more people, which itself is a deterrent. “Part of the issue with infringement is for people to be aware that their actions are not anonymous,” said Mitch Bainwol, the group’s chairman.

Mr. Bainwol said that while he thought the litigation had been effective in some regards, new methods were now available to the industry. “Over the course of five years, the marketplace has changed,” he said in an interview. Litigation, he said, was successful in raising the public’s awareness that file-sharing is illegal, but now he wants to try a strategy he thinks could prove more successful.

The RIAA says piracy would have been even worse without the lawsuits. Citing data from consulting firm NPD Group Inc., the industry says the percentage of Internet users who download music over the Internet has remained fairly constant, hovering around 19% over the past few years. However, the volume of music files shared over the Internet has grown steadily.

Meanwhile, music sales continue to fall. In 2003, the industry sold 656 million albums. In 2007, the number fell to 500 million CDs and digital albums, plus 844 million paid individual song downloads — hardly enough to make up the decline in album sales.

—Amol Sharma contributed to this article.

[via WSJ Online] by Sarah McBride and Ethan Smith

THE M COMPANIES, in partnership with EdenFresh, LLC, is developing a similar product (actually more complex and effective) using a hybrid-nanosilver compound, which is added into paint products. Check out ECOATS.NET!

Check out this great article about a similar product in Entreprenuer:

Warm, wet European summers offer the perfect growing conditions for fungi. Species such as Zygomycota, Deuteromycota and/or Ascomycota, responsible for mould and mildew growth, may be thriving in up to a fifth of Europe’s houses, according to a 2006 study by the Federal Statistical Office in Germany. New as well as old buildings are affected, with nearly a tenth of German apartments estimated to have mould and mildew growing in them.

The growth of these microscopic mould fungi is not just unsightly, but may also be partly to blame for the increasing numbers of cases asthma, rhinitis and other allergies, health experts warn.

‘The risk of mould growth depends on the influence of factors, such as organic material, temperature, humidity and ventilation,’ says Helmut Schmid, head of nanotechnology at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. ‘In old buildings the cause is often moisture caused by defects in the construction of the foundation; in modern buildings the same problem arises because better thermal insulation often leads to a lower air exchange.’

Traditional anti-mould paints, which contain isothiazolinone compounds (Structure I), are effective in tackling the problem. But they often stop working after a couple of years and bring with them their own associated health risks, as sensitisers and contact allergens.

New nanoparticle-containing paints do the job just as effectively, Schmid says, but last ‘indefinitely’ for as long as the paint layer remains clean and intact. The paints, which contain tiny quantities of nanosilver particles, exert their lethal effects by reacting with proteins in the outer membranes of microorganisms, he explains, so rendering them incapable of carrying out their normal activities and swiftly leading to cell death. And because of the way they are formulated they should be safer than existing anti-mould paints.

The result of a five-year collaborative effort by coatings company Bioni and Fraunhofer Institute researchers, Bioni nano-paints have already been on the marketplace for several months. Earlier this year, Bioni Hygienic paint, which is currently applied in several hospitals, was singled out for a Frost Sullivan European award for excellence in research.

‘This innovative coating is set to have a profound impact on the medical sector,’ says Frost & Sullivan senior research analyst Archana Jayarajah. ‘In principle it not only permanently prevents the formation of mould and fungal growth on walls, but also reduces germs that are resistant to antibiotics in hospitals.’

Tests have shown, for example, that when brought into contact with the Bioni Hygienic coating, there is a 99.999% reduction in the dangerous hospital superbugs Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecium.

‘It is known since antiquity that silver has antimicrobial effects,’ Schmid says. ‘The difficulty was to produce and stabilise it in the nano-form and do the product integration.’

While silver particles themselves are toxic, silver nanoparticles have a much greater surface area and so can be used in only tiny quantities, which should make the technology much safer. Bioni Hygienic and Bioni Nature paints, for example, are also expected to find use in children’s bedrooms, bathrooms and care homes for elderly or disabled patients.

Making a paint including nanoparticle silver poses huge technical challenges, Jayarajah points out. As well as manufacturing the particles at roughly uniform 13nm diameter sizes, the researchers had to find a way of preventing them from clumping together and precipitating in the final paint formulation. ‘The researchers were able to address these problems by stabilising the nanoparticles with additives and quickly integrating them in a polymer system, which also serves to facilitate a homogeneous distribution of the particles,’ Jayarajah says.

Importantly, trapping the particles in a polymer matrix also prevents them from escaping from the final paint. Particles embedded in the polymer are held tight and unable to break free, a fact confirmed experimentally by atom emission spectroscopy, Schmid points out. The TUV Produkt und Umwelt, a test institute in Cologne, Germany, has awarded the coatings its TUV Rheinland Signet for emission free coatings, confirming that they are non-toxic and won’t cause cancer, deformities or mutations.

Used as an outside coating, meanwhile, Bioni’s nanosilver technology is also claimed to reduce air conditioning bills. Due to their expanded surface area, nano-silver particles reflect 93% of incident sunlight. This property, together with the ‘significantly lower thermal conductivity’ of the paints compared with conventional ones, makes them useful for keeping indoor temperatures down in hot weather conditions, Bioni says.

Bioni Perform coating, marketed for building exteriors, is available for roofs and facades. Designed to protect against weather extremes including heat, UV radiation, moisture and salty air, it is also claimed to reduce the cost of maintenance and repair.

Horses stables are another area where Bioni’s nanosilver paints are being applied. Painting the wood and walls of the stables with Bioni Nature kills the fungal spores that are a risk factor for COPD in horses, a condition not unlike human asthma, and which cuts short the career of many racehorses. In tests of Bioni Nature against Aspergillus niger, the benchmark of all anti-fungus coatings, the paint is reported to destroy all of the spores present.

But while applications for nanosilver generally are burgeoning–from odour-free socks to medical devices and air conditioning systems–experts worry about the potential environmental consequences. They warn that the release of silver particles into aquatic systems could disrupt the ecosystem by endangering bacteria that live in lakes and streams. Further growth of the technology, Jayarajah cautions, ‘will largely depend on how the industry handles health and safety concerns,’ pointing out the lack of data on these issues and the absence of stringent regulations on the use of the particles.

At Bioni, researchers are more optimistic. ‘Bioni Hygienic is meeting the highest hygiene requirements and standards for paints and coatings, says Harry Stulajiter, director of Nanovations in Sydney, the Australian partner of the global Bioni network. ‘The nano-silver in the size of 13nm is embedded in a formulated structure that prevents it from congregating into larger agglomerates. The process also binds the particles permanently to the paint. That’s essential from a toxicological point of view, and eliminates any effect to human health from manufacturing to the application.’

New products based on the technology are already in the pipeline and include coatings for dental implants, synthetic bones, catheters, cardiac valves and packaging for foodstuffs and toys. A wallpaper containing the nanosilver particles is expected to be launched any time now. ‘Our next products will come to market in September [next month],’ Helmut promises.

Nanotechnology-based paints are growing rapidly, and in 2004 accounted for 5% of the total market for paints and coatings, according to Frost & Sullivan figures. Sales of nanomaterials in this sector are projected to rise from $ 8m in 2004 to $ 2749 by 2015. At least 86% of automotive paints are expected to incorporate some form of nanotechnology in their product portfolio by 2015.

In Brief

• Mould and mildew may be a problem in up to a fifth of European homes
• Current anti-mould paints could pose a health risk and are short-acting
• Nanosilver-containing paints prevent mould permanently
• They could also help to destroy bacteria including MRSA

[via Entrepreneur] byCath O’Driscoll

August 5th, 20008 – Ivan Mladenovic & The M Companies featured in Gulliver Schools THE ATRIUM magazine.

Check out the full article here

New features include a business development BLOG, which will highlight new trends, salient articles, and posts from partner sites in the community. We have also added a more detailed PROJECTS section, which provides more detailed information about ventures currently being undertaken at The M Companies.

We hope you enjoy the new site, and welcome any comments or suggestions.